Wenger hits out at ‘diver’ Raheem Sterling

Arsene Wenger has hit out at Raheem Sterling, saying that the England international is good at diving after he won a penalty for Man City during their 3-1 win yesterday.

With the hosts leading 1-0, the City man went went down under a challenge from Nacho Monreal and referee Michael Olivier pointed to the spot. Sergio Aguero converted to make it 2-0, and afterwards the Arsenal manager didn’t hold back in his criticism of the player and the officials.

“I believe it was no penalty,” he said. “We know that Raheem Sterling dives well, he does that very well.

“And the third goal was offside. I am very upset because at 2-1 we were in the game.

“The third goal was the killer and it is not by coincidence that mistakes always go for the home team, as we know.

“It is unfortunate that the game finished the way it finished. I am disappointed.

“You can accept it if City win in a normal way, they are a good side, but this is unacceptable. Last season we lost two offside goals and it has happened again.”

Wenger could face disciplinary charges for his comments about Sterling, and the fact he has called into question the integrity of the match officials.

The Gunners must now lick their wounds going into the Interlull, knowing they face a North London derby when they return.

I think Wenger needs to be quiet. There are dives and then there are 50 50’s with contact from both players. This was the latter. Citeh were better, we didn’t trouble Emerson apart from the goal and a tame shot from Iwobi. We gave the ball away so many times in our own half, as we always do. We were wasteful when we did get opportunities and lacked cohesion and fluency. They were better. Simple. Don’t start making offensive comments about opposition players to hide our own shortcomings.

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1 year ago

Ponsonby Gooner

I think Wenger was spot on in that it was a convincing dive- Stirling deliberately tangles his legs in Monreals after they go shoulder to shoulder. Monreal took the bait though when if he’d let him shoot Czech would have had a decent chance of saving though in my opinion. Very easy to criticise when a player only has a split second to make a decision like that though so Wenger chose the right player to call out I think.

100% yes, I couldn’t agree more. Rihanna (Sterling) is a weak character and you know what: you do not win things with Sterling.

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1 year ago

Fabulous

You just sound like a bitter ex now. Pires, may I remind you is 13 years ago. Move on ffs.

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1 year ago

Riku

Exactly People called pires a diver as I recall , just like we are and arsene did to sterling.

When Jose blames refs and other teams player, he is a genius who deflect from his team and shields them,

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1 year ago

jack jack jack

He is. Kind of love how much of a bad loser our Arsene is. The whole charming intellectual side of him goes completely out the window

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1 year ago

BringBackSeaman

The best winners, are the worst of losers.

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1 year ago

Bould\'s Eyeliner

It’s honest proof that he cares about winning. Good enough for me. I don’t need no PR robot, I just want some wins. At least on this, Wenger and us fans are on the same page.

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1 year ago

Greg

I’m very upset that we played coq as a 3rd cb where emphasis is placed on his ability to pass the ball out of defence which he isn’t good enough at

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1 year ago

PFo

have no idea how anyone could thumb this down.

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1 year ago

Arsenal Fan

cos we dont agree?

coq was chosen for his defensive qualities because a few of our CBs were not available.

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1 year ago

Arsenic

I thought he did OK.

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1 year ago

caligunner

I understand that Coq did relatively well yesterday. What I don’t agree on is that he should have been in a position yesterday to show if he was going to be good or bad or inbewteen. I don’t think he should have been playing yesterday especially in the form he is in and the display he showed during the the week.

If we didn’t have enough CB then AW should have changed our formation to fit the players strengths then put a player out of position. If he wanted to do that then he should have just put Elneny in that position since he’s been basically playing that position the last 2-3 games with the B team.

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1 year ago

Espen

Go watch other teams Greg.

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1 year ago

Lack of Perspective

And was instrumental in finding bellerin in space in the first half.

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1 year ago

Bould\'s Eyeliner

It’s clear that the role of playing the ball out of defense was reserved for Koscielny or Monreal (who are both better at it than Coq anyway)–only successful passes Coq made were to his senior CB’s.

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1 year ago

Jonny Bravo

He had no issue with his diving when he wanted him as part of the Alexis deal.

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1 year ago

420Goonerblayzeit

Now he’s lashing out because he feels foolish for overthinking the line up. We were finally seeing promise w laca and Sanchez together and then first big game he changes it. It defies belief. lets be honest if roles were reversed on that penalty all Arsenal fans would want it given. So to point to the officiating now is sour grapes

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1 year ago

Cannonball

Except there are no such thing such as soft penalty for us! Everytime we are pushed on oppositions box, people always say we have to ‘man up’! Troy Deeney’s comment last time was an example on how bias people are when they see our team. Although I have to agree with Troy’s comment on how Arsenal players have less ‘cojones’ than him, since he at least has 2. Total dickhead.

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1 year ago

Gilberto

Haha good one!

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1 year ago

Cannonball

Disciplinary charge? And still the refs will be given nothing at all? No attempt on fixing the root problem in their bad refereeing? I know FA is corrupted, but can’t they be less obvious on it?

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1 year ago

Jamie

Nothing will happen. We won’t be surprised.

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1 year ago

Anonymarse

I wouldn’t get your hopes up

Things like retrospective punishment for cheating and video refereeing should help to sort things out, but they manage to find ways to fuck it up

Nobody wants to see cheating but as long as it is allowed they will continue to do it. Pundits often condone it as ‘clever’ play.

They pointed out that Sterling ‘drew’ the foul by moving across Monreal but nobody calls it what it is …

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1 year ago

Ausdrexler

Refs make mistakes too. Who would want to be a ref these days? You get paid pittance compared to the spoilt players, and yet you make a decision based on what you have seen and every man and his donkey want your balls served on a silver platter with a side of mint sauce.

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1 year ago

Andy Mack

Whilst it’s true that they earn less in a year than some players do in a week, £70k+ per annum should still justify a higher standard than we’re actually receiving.

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1 year ago

Badaab

The ref did make a mistake on the call, but he was also not in a good position to have made the call in the first place. Video review or a fifth official would assist officials in this sort of scenario.

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1 year ago

Andy Mack

Part of his job is being in the right position to see these things.
Obviously that’s not always possible but some refs just wander round like 3 year olds.

@Ausdrexler well I know referees do make mistakes. But mistakes can be fixed, and with all the money going into PL, it is not supposed to be that hard. Bundesliga has a video system to ensure referee’s decision, why can’t PL have it? We have some retrospective acts in the league, I remember the decision when Gabriel(iirc) was sent off wrongly, and then the diver(against a big 6 team I believe) was banned later after reviewing the incident. But the damage was already done! We lost 3 points, and even if the player was handed a ban, they don’t even care since there are players to fill the position.

And why do the refs ref? Because they are arrogant, lazy, beerbellied attention seekers.

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1 year ago

A different George

For better or worse, “discipline” against officials is typically private. I would be very surprised to see this linesman in an important game in the next few weeks. Oliver’s penalty call was close enough (no, I am not saying it was correct) to avoid any kind of discipline.

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1 year ago

Ben

Thought we actually played really well in spells.. good diagonal balls to open up play and good closing down
Yes city were superior, but we already know this (aguero is their version of giroud, says it all really to have a player of that callibre not starting..no disrespect to our big frenchman)
But I could see us going on to draw (or maybe even win it..or even lose it right at the death – this is arsenal of course, nothing is easy lol)
However bad decisions from the referee again cost us… how many times now? And how comes it always feels like it’s us on the rough end of things
Anyways.. feel like we need to get behind the team .. especially after a good but fruitless performance… our fans seem like the most divided and subdued in the league, and whether that keif the result of bad managment or leadership or whatever, certain sections of the media are thriving off of this, and all they have to say is bad things about our club.. fans need to get behind the team.. then once the season is over don’t buy the kit, or protest some other way.. cos we are all tired of this bullshit every year. And I include certain sections of our fan base who thrive off of this negativity, and are almost happy when we lose

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1 year ago

Anonymarse

We did surprisingly ok but there is an obvious gap now between the two teams, which considering how much money they have spent recently isn’t surprising.

The two teams scoring the most goals so far this season in Europe according to Sky are City and PSG. They are both effectively funded by countries with unlimited funds but nobody is going to do anything about that either, even though it is supposed to be against the rules.

It looks like the corruption is still just as rife in Fifa as it always was, they are now just hiding it better. Either that or the whole thing is just run by idiots (or both).

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1 year ago

Anonymarse

Probably both

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1 year ago

Mikeh

Good post Ben – well said. Sadly, hardly anyone will take what you said on board.

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1 year ago

Naman

Whatever you may think of Arsene, he is absolutely correct about the officials here. The 3rd goal came at a time when we could have come back in the game. Even Xhaka was incensed.

It was a big game, a big point and there are close to none repercussions for such major wrong calls.

Embrace technology.

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1 year ago

tublu

if you want VAR city would have had a pen in the first half too. kalashnikov pushed sterling in the back as he was about to tap in, I’m surprised Arsene’s suddenly improved ocular capacity didn’t allow him to spot that one. Seems he’s still a myopic old tw4t when it suits him, or he had laser surgery at half time 🙂

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1 year ago

Nelson

If I had the time I would love to review every single match and look at all awarded and non awarded penalty decisions as well as all controversial offside calls.

Upsets me that whilst spurs get all the pundits raving about them completely ignoring that they only. Eat Dortmund due to aubemyangs goal being incorrectly ruled out and their offside goal v Madrid which caused Madrid to push up and leave holes that spurs exploited.

Whilst we have Alan smith blatantly chat shit that a blatant offside is onside and say laca was offside v stoke.

Also like to point out palace should have had two penalties for way more contact then monreal out on sterling.

Sterling and richarlison show how more and more football is becoming a non contact sport.

This rant is completely ungrammatical and probably makes no sense but I’m still pissed and it’s 00:37 xD

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1 year ago

Andy Mack

One of the other sites used to do that after every game. They had a set of non-gooner refs doing it for a season and it was tough reading how poorly the refs treated us. It definately doesn’t even out over a season.

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1 year ago

Manninger

Seriously, when will Untold Arsenal get the shoutout/invite it deserves?

Unlike 99.999% of us Arsenal fans, they went and developed a mathematical, fact based report which confirms The Gut Instinct We Are Cheated Continually.

As a super keen reader of Andrew’s thoughts/entries for some 9 years, I would love to at least hear his thoughts on this, even if dismissive.

We live in a world of ‘no-excuses for failure’. We are managed by a man who was cheated out of a whole league title at Monaco. More discourse about our treatment is needed.

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1 year ago

Gervinho

Love when the commentators say “he has every right to go down there.”

It implicitly acknowledges that he chose to go down, rather than being forced to go down.

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1 year ago

Smoo Smoo

if they don’t go down, they don’t get the penalty, regardless of how clear-cut the penalty was (which that one CLEARLY was)

I’ve seen such challenges by our defenders waved off before; the penalty was not obvious. Let’s call it 50-50. It was shoulder to shoulder, but Monreal didn’t get to the ball. You are right about going down, though. 90% of forwards would have taken that tumble, including ours.

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1 year ago

A different George

You do not need to get the ball for a shoulder-to-shoulder charge on an opponent with possession to be legal. A charge is a “challenge for space,” as the Laws of the Game explains:

“The act of charging is a challenge for space using physical contact within playing distance of the ball without using arms or elbows.
It is an offence to charge an opponent: in a careless manner, in a reckless manner [or] using excessive force.”

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1 year ago

Diarra

It was a penalty. On the other hand can’t see us getting a call like that in a big match.

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1 year ago

Andy Mack

It wasn’t a penalty, and if Luiz or Jones or Stones had made that tackle then the media would be screaming what an excellent tackle it was.

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1 year ago

A different George

Well, certainly Jones or Stone. Or Cahill. Or Shawcross. I’m not sure the British media is quite so fond of David Luiz.

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1 year ago

Andy Mack

Their love/hate for Luiz runs hot and cold, so maybe this week they wouldn’t have done…

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1 year ago

SFGiants

I believe it was wrong of Wenger to challenge the integrity of the officials. They’re as honest as the day is long.

On the other hand you’ll have no problem questioning their eyesight or competence.

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1 year ago

Tankard Gooner

Blimey you get into worse trouble for questioning those!

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1 year ago

MrSweaty

Although City were good, not at their best but good, the officials played a part in the 2nd and 3rd goals, effectively killing the game not once but twice. The penalty was soft. If it was 1 our lads I would appeal but if it was us it wouldn’t be given. I’m more annoyed at the fact that just about 30 secs before that we were in a great position for a counter but the ref gave a free kick to them for a nothing challenge. And don’t even get me started on the 3rd goal…

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1 year ago

Ausdrexler

Arsene has changed. A few years ago he would of said he didnt see the incident and he has always said officials make mistakes too,but then says the team had chances to win the game but couldnt. Now, its deadset the reverse, he has started to look to blame everyone else. Spose its just following inline with almost every other manager. But I always thought Arsene had a bit of integrity and honour about the way he carried himself. The pressure of failing at a big club must be getting to him. Which isnt good for his health, at his age.

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1 year ago

Manninger

Utter drivel.

Buy his book when it comes out.

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1 year ago

Lord Bendnter

Uncalled for actually. There was contact and I don’t mean a light touch. You can’t call that a dive. That’s called being smart and going down. If one of our players was in that position I would want them to go down too. The penalty decision might be seen as harsh, but it’s certainly not dirty.

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1 year ago

Shambles

At no point in that tackle did monreal touch the ball because sterling shielded it well. I love monreal but he’s fond of barging into attackers and then raising both hands up to claim innocence.
We have gotten a few offside goals go our way in crucial matches too so we can be outraged about the third goal but that doesn’t make it a conspiracy against us.

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1 year ago

yen

Might sound funny, but someone should seriously talk to Monreal about his hands (and body language in general).

Once he gets into these controversial situations, he does something that gives himself away – guilty or not.

shoulder to shoulder, it doesn’t matter if you get the ball or not. It’s a fair challenge. If it had been shoulder to back etc then it would be a foul.

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1 year ago

pedro

Take a look at the photo, Sterling (a grown man and a professional athlete) is carrying on like Monreal has just fisted him. It’s pathetic. It’s pathetic when it’s an Arsenal player, it’s pathetic if it’s a City player. Just get rid of it from the game, the overpaid pricks in charge of the game said they would be targeting this sort of thing but have done worse than nothing about it.

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1 year ago

Donald\'s Trump

Lol but when someone shoves Debuchy we want him charged for attempted murder.

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1 year ago

tublu

they’ve punished at least two league two cloggers. Perhaps if AW complains enough he’ll be able to get it reviewed. It was a penalty.

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1 year ago

yen

Yesterday I was pissed off at the refs because I knew Wenger gonna blame them for the result.

Today, I’m pissed off at the refs for their piss poor decisioning – and Wenger is right to point it out.

Are City a better side? Yes. Did they deserve to win yesterday? Not so sure about that.

The facts are that they were awarded a soft penalty and an offside goal which put the game to bed when it looked we could come up with something more.

Yes, they had tons of other chances to score and therefore it might seem they deserved to win anyway, but the fact is that they didn’t convert them. They scored one proper goal, we scored one proper goal.

Wenger is right to be pissed off. We should have left with an ugly point.

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1 year ago

A different George

I honestly thought we were likely to score again after our goal.

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1 year ago

John

We were still outplayed all over the pitch 2nd best for everything.how many times did we give the ball away its embarrassing watching us now and listening to all the excuses getting bored with it now we really need new management no hunger there anymore

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1 year ago

Theo Layder

It was not a penalty plain and simple. It came at a crucial time in the game it changed the game. I am not sure if we would have got the points anyway but it certainly took away the chance. The game was changed and given to City by the ref. That is the truth. Oliver was horrible the whole game.

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1 year ago

Matt

Not only IT WAS a penalty and NOT a dive, but it was a clumsy challenge by a guy who is not a cb. I can’t stand Wenger anymore, blaming others for his awful decisions and failiures. And we are gonna have yet one more season of this guy, just depressing

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1 year ago

A different George

I do not think it was a penalty, though that was less obvious from Oliver’s position, at full speed, and with Sterling’s histrionics. But on replay, it certainly was not a clumsy challenge; it was a shoulder-to-shoulder charge that pushed Sterling off the ball.

My point, though, is that you are blaming Wenger for playing Monreal at a position at which he has done very well for us in almost every match. Even if this was a bad challenge, your blaming Wenger for choosing Monreal is just barely this side of nuts.

Remind me again, what kind of society do we have when people are punished for speaking their mind or even telling the truth?

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1 year ago

Gilberto

Deflecting away from the real issues! Didn’t Wenger want Sterling in the summer? Bit weird to then criticize him

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1 year ago

St.macca

It was a penalty! Let the thumbs down commence.

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1 year ago

Riku

When in the Manchester derby Ashley young goes down from a challenge like that to win a penalty city fans will say it is not a pen. And a dive.

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1 year ago

Bergkamp\'s Toe

I think he’s just taking the heat away from his players. If you look at the “By the Numbers” and the game we actually didn’t play bad. But yeah the refs and a couple of stupid decisions(Play to the whistle!) hit us. I was surprised and actually pleased with the setup. Lacazette over Ozil? sure. Its a bit graceless but I think he’s looking out for his team.

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1 year ago

Sal

You know it, Mr Wenger… COYG let’s all go stuff the Spuds

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1 year ago

Lonvein

Funny how things can change. It’s not that long ago we were being told in the bar that FFP would be our saviour, and the fact that Pep had joined Citeh meant that we had dodged yet another bullet.

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1 year ago

A Person

Raheem Sterling is Awful.

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1 year ago

A Person

Raheem Sterling is a cheater , he has cheated on his Girlfriend by sleeping with a Hooker and later he refused to give money to the Hooker ! pathetic.